Thursday on the RealClearPolitics podcast, Carl Cannon, Tom Bevan, and Emily Jashinsky look back at the six months since the start of the war with Iran, assess HHS Secretary Kennedy’s accusation that Pennsylvania has overstated the number of people who have died from measles, and debate why Los Angeles seems to be falling apart. Plus, a tribute to Dolly Parton: was she the last great American icon? And was San Francisco 49ers owner Jed York’s arrest entrapment? Listen live weekdays at 11:00 a.m. Eastern on SiriusXM’s Megyn Kelly Channel 111, or on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or other platforms.

00:00 – Opening: Six Months of War in Iran Jashinsky, Cannon, and Bevan discuss how the public perceives the war in Iran after six months, with just over two months before the midterm elections. “Maybe it is something we have to do, but as far as a political issue, it looks like it’s going to hurt Republicans in the midterms,” Tom Bevan said. Watch: “He hasn’t been able to sell it or find a wedge issue against Democrats that makes the public more favorable to his position,” Jashinsky said. “I think he really is at a fork in the road.” “There’s a formal way that wartime presidents speak that this president doesn’t speak, and so it creates an impression that this is an ad hoc war,” Cannon said. *** 19:08 – RFK Accuses Shapiro of Faking Deaths? The panel turns to HHS Sec. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s allegation that Pennsylvania officials may have fabricated or prematurely announced two measles-related deaths in Lancaster County in order to blame him. RFK Jr.’s unusual political positions are often dismissed as bunk by critics, but seen by supporters as well-informed and unfairly caricatured. “When you go hold a press conference and attack the integrity of a member of the Cabinet by name and say that he’s – imply he’s responsible for these deaths, it is not unreasonable for you to have to produce some facts at that point,” Cannon said. *** 29:25 – Why Can’t Los Angeles Function The group reviews a City Journal piece on the deteriorating infrastructure of Los Angeles, massive homelessness and drug problems, high housing costs, and broader failures of city government. “Is it overcrowding or a failure of political leadership? It’s obviously partly both,” said Carl Cannon. “Los Angeles has become the kind of place that some of these decrepit cities in the East were – I’m thinking New York in the ’70s.” City Journal: “Los Angeles Darkening: How an American-Dream City Became a Case Study in Urban Dysfunction” “Carl says it’s not all Gavin Newsom’s fault, I’ll make the case that there’s a lot of it that’s Gavin Newsom’s fault,” Emily Jashinsky said. *** 37:41 – Dolly Parton: The Last American Icon? The group asks whether Dolly Parton was among the last great American icons to transcend the modern partisan divide. “These days everything’s so polarized, whenever someone on the right dies, people on the left dance – Charlie Kirk is who I’m thinking of. But vice versa, right? Robert Mueller dies, and Donald Trump sends out this horrible tweet about, you know, glad he’s dead, that kind of stuff,” Tom Bevan said. “Nobody did that about Dolly Parton. Nobody.” “Counterintuitively, it actually depresses me because, with her passing, I think we’re losing one of the few remaining figures,” Emily said. “She, both spiritually and as a businesswoman, recognized the importance of being a unifying figure. And that’s just going away.” “Even when criticizing, she came from a place of love. What politician out there is trying to do that? What politician is calling his own side out as much as the other side, coming from a place of love?” Cannon asked. “Everybody operates that way. But what have we gotten? We’ve gotten Donald Trump and Joe Biden. So maybe we should try a new theory.” *** 46:05 – _ The episode ends with a lighter segment about San Francisco 49ers owner Jed York’s arrest in an alleged prostitution sting in Ohio. Why would a wealthy NFL owner put himself in a situation like that? “I’m going to file a Freedom of Information request – I want to know these cops. Well, I think they’re Rams fans or Seahawks fans,” Carl Cannon joked. “It was clear entrapment. There’s no prostitute. There’s these cops just out there trolling, trying to lure poor, unsuspecting divorced men, lonely hearts, okay? – into committing a sin.”

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